Whip planting at West Beckham Old Allotments in November sunshine

A surprisingly warm and sunny day at West Beckham Old Allotments with a huge number of hedge plants – blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel, holly, spindle, crab apple, rowan – saw six volunteers working hard all morning (well, one sloped off at 11.00) planting a good number of whips down the middle of the site to create a shelter belt that mimics the structure of an ancient hedge.

The whips were kindly provided by NNDC as part of its plan to plant 110,000 trees to help to address climate change.

We were visited mid-morning by three of NNDC’s environmental team: Nigel Stannett (Climate Change Project Officer), Tracey Neate (Environmental Events Coordinator), and Felix Brueggemann (Communications Officer).

They were given a guided tour by Trevor and talked to all of the volunteers on site, as well as joining in with the tree-planting. Felix took photos of the work party in action and interviewed Trevor about our work at WBOA and the CPRE Countryside Champions Award that we recently won.

Thanks to all who came. The next work party will be on Thursday December 2nd and will be at WBOA again to carry on with hedge-planting and restoration.